Imagine brewing our own Tumbly Beer!?
This could be a reality if we manage to save the Tumbledown from the hands of McDonald’s. Our own micro brewery on-site all part of our long term vision if we can get the opportunity to bid!

Here’s a gruesome historical fact for the Easter weekend. In 1819, Peter Rainer stopped off at The Tumbledown Dick and robbed the carriage (at gun point) that was transporting him saying,
“Deliver your money or I will have your life.”

He was found guilt by a jury in Middlesex and sentenced to death for robbery aged only 19.

Bride Hall (who also own the Tumbledown site) have now applied for planning to demolish the shops and flats at Firgrove Parade, Farnborough, to be replaced by an 80 bed budget hotel (A Premier Inn – Farnborough already has one in Southwood, and there are 600 Premier Inns in the country. There is a new and rather ugly Travelodge just 50 yards from this site) with a large Beefeater Restaurant below, flats & retail units. This development will also see the loss of the last remaining green space in the town centre with 12 trees next to the parade, which despite having covenants to protect it, is being given up by Rushmoor Borough Council to enable Bride Hall to proceed with this development and will be lost.

It is VERY important that any objections submitted to this scheme are based on actual planning reasons, rather than just disagreeing with it. We have put together what we think are suitable grounds for objections.

This is extremely urgent as the closing date for objections to the Firgrove Parade development plan is Tuesday 19th March, 2013.

What Can I Do to Help?

Email an objection to Rushmoor Borough Council

We will only ask you to object to this application and the one for the Tumbly (when it comes up)

Objection 2 – Previous granted planning applications

Planning application (ref#00/00695/FUL granted 24th April 2002) contains caveats that include:
“protecting the trees in the interest of the health of the trees and the visual amenity of the area
“to protect the visual amenities of the street scene and the character and appearance of the area”
“to protect the amenities of surrounding residential properties and other occupiers”
“to ensure that materials harmonise with the surrounding buildings and environment”
“to ensure that existing trees are adequately protected in the interests of the visual amenities of the site and the locality in general.”

This precedent in 2002 placed the caveats to protect the aesthetic of the area and ensure that sufficient care was taken to protect the visual amenity of the area. This precedent has not been taken into account in the new proposals by Bride Hall which are severely lacking in visual aesthetic and amenities and are not harmonised with the surrounding buildings.

Objection 3 – parking

The proposed development lists 20 public parking spaces for a development that is significantly greater than this. The developers reasoning for lack of parking provision is that it’s OK to use other paid for parking in the vicinity of the development.

The current parking provision in the proposed planning documents allocates 14 residential car parking spaces, 13 retail spaces, 7 allocated hotel parking spaces. For a development of this size, there will be a lot of displaced parking, onto the Kingsmead surface car park (aka Sainbury’s car park) which will have a commercial impact upon Sainsbury’s and other retailer with customers being unable to park within easy access. this will impact upon the town’s development as a whole.

Objection 4 – Local Highway Network

The developer claims that:

“the development will not have a significant impact upon the local highway network”

However, since Sainburys opened up there has been significant growth in traffic that are single destination journeys and with the proposed usage of hotel and restaurant, this will increase significantly those traffic with regards to singal journey traffic and on already at capacity junctions, namely the a325 Clockhouse roundabout and the junction of Victoria Road and Kingsmead junction traffic lights.

There are also no provisions for disabled parking.

There is no mention of the current capacity used by the existing serviced apartments.
13/00024/FULPP | Demolition and redevelopment of properties at 1-5 Firgrove Parade
publicaccess.rushmoor.gov.uk

Objection 5

Loss of Green Space – this development will see the loss of one of the last remaining green spaces in the town centre after the removal of covenants protecting it. The purported planting contained within the plan is by no way comparable to the size and density of the current green space.

On this day, five years ago, I popped out, at around tea time, to get dinner for my family.

As I stood in Farnborough Kebab and Burger (FKB) waiting for a large doner, a chicken burger, chips and salad, I glanced across the Farnborough Road and thought something was amiss. The Tumble Down Dick, the pub I’d occasionally frequented over a period of twenty years, was eerily dark. Continue reading →

Update: The Tumbly is now the FIRST ever building in Rushmoor to be accepted as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) following nomination by the The Friends of the Tumble Down Dick. This is a new term from the Localism Bill which means that if the building does go up for sale, The Friends of the Tumbledown (a community group) will automatically be given a ‘right to bid’ on it and be given six months to raise the funds to buy the building… Continue reading →

Since the closure of the pub there have been a number of reports about the Tumble Down Dick in the News both as a headline feature and getting a mention too.

Here we’ve collected links to as many of those stories as we can, dating back over the last five years, which is about the same time since our beloved pub last closed its doors. Note that the Tumbledown has made the Farnborough News headlines every year since it has shut and has regularly been mentioned as “historic” and “much loved”…

It was brought to my attention earlier this week that The Chairman of The Farnborough Society (TFS) had a communication published in the letters page of last week’s Farnborough News & Mail (25th January 2013).